“The dog is Beauty,” Mrs. Cunningham added. “She was facetiously named by Abby’s husband when she was a puppy, but she grew to fit the name.”
There was a chorus of“How do you do, Mrs. Tavernor?”from the cousins, who looked to be all about the same age. They bobbed curtsies.
“I am very pleased to meet you all,” Lydia said.
“Your dog looks like a ball of fluffy wool,” Rebecca Archer said. “He issweet. May I pet him? Will he bite?”
“She does not bite,” Lydia said. “And she loves to be made a fuss of.”
All three girls crowded around to pet her dog. They laughed with glee when Lydia told them her name.
“Shelookslike a snowball,” Katy Bennington said. “How funny.”
“She licked my hand,” Alice Cunningham said, snatching it away with a squeal. “Come and see Emma’s tooth, Mama. You can come too, Aunt Abby. And Uncle Harry. Would you like to see it, Mrs. Tavernor?”
“Mrs. Tavernor and I are going for a walk,” Harry said. “I will come and admire the tooth later. Rebecca’s too if she insists and if her papa has not already gilded it. Mrs. Tavernor?” He stepped forward to take Snowball from her. “Hush, dog. We know you are a mighty warrior, but you may frighten poor Beauty if you are set down.” He offered Lydia his free arm.
“I scarcely recognize my home,” he said as they walked away. “It has suffered an invasion. A surprise one, I might add. I did not have an inkling. Foolish of me.”
“Do you mind?” she asked him.
He sighed and then chuckled. “I am extremely fond of them all,” he said. “And I appreciate the fact that they made such a herculean effort to plan this surprise and come all the way here just to help me celebrate my birthday. Camille made their journey sound hilarious when she described it to you just now, but in reality it must have been … well. Nightmarish? Everyone has come. The whole family. Without exception. Even one grandmother who is almost eighty and the other who is not far behind. I am very grateful to them all.”
“But?” she said. They had turned off the drive just when it had seemed inevitable that they would come close to more people. He was leading her along the east side of the house.
“There is no realbut,” he said. “This may all seem ridiculously extravagant for a mere thirtieth birthday. Everyone has one of those, after all, provided he or she lives long enough. It is more than that with my family, though. They all want desperately to make things up to me. They look upon me as being at the very heart of what happened ten years ago. I was the one who suffered most obviously. I lost everything—the title, the properties, the fortune, my legitimacy, any residual respect I had left for my father. I lost my position as head of the family. I lost my ability to protect and care for my mother and sisters. And then I went off to war and got myself horribly wounded a number of times. I was actually sent home to England to recover at one time and arrived with a high fever and pretty much off my head. I got myself very nearly killed at Waterloo and was eventually carried back here, ill, weak, and destitute except for what I could still expect from an officer’s half-pay.”
He paused to smile at Lydia.
“This family did not just feel sorry for me,” he continued. “They did not even just feel that they must take me into their collective embrace and care for me. They feltguilty.As though everything that had happened was somehow their fault. My father was my grandmother’ssonand my aunts’brother.They blamed themselves for the way he turned out, though it seems extremely unlikely there was anything they could have done to stop him from being the rotten apple he was. Alexander blamed himself for inheriting what ought to have been mine, even though he made it obvious from the start that he did notwantany of it. Anna blamed herself for being our father’s only legitimate child—as though she could helpthat—and for inheriting everything that was not entailed. Even Hinsford.”
“You told me before that it does not belong to you,” Lydia said.
“She has tried a number of times to give it to me as well as what she insists is my quarter of the fortune,” he said. “But I have steadfastly refused. Now that I think about it, though, perhaps my pride has made me unkind. Itisunkind to rebuff a sincerely offered gift. My family’s sensibilities have been soothed by the happy marriages of my mother and my sisters. But there is still me.”
“And you are about to turn thirty,” she said.
“Precisely.” He stopped for a moment to set Snowball down to walk beside them.
“And you are still living here in the country,” she said. “Unmarried and without children.”
“And therefore in their estimationnotliving happily ever after,” he said. “And they still cannot forgive themselves for offenses they did not commit. I cannot resent them, Lydia. They love me too dearly. And I love them.”
“But,”she said, and laughed.
“But,” he agreed, and sighed—and then laughed too.
“Do you find all the children bothersome?” she asked.
“No.” He looked at her in some surprise. “Why should I? I find them a delight most of the time, and when I do not, they are their parents’ responsibility, not mine. I get the best of both worlds.”
“Seeing those three little girls, cousins who look to be close to one another in age, reminded me of how much I longed for a sister when I was a girl,” she said. “Though I would happily have settled for a cousin or two.”
They had come to the back of the house by now and paused for a few moments to look at the long expanse of the kitchen garden. Spring flowers, presumably ones to be cut for the house, took up half of one side and were blooming in some profusion. Vegetables, many of them already pushing through the soil, stood in neat rows to fill the rest. Snowball, taking up the whole length of her lead, was sniffing along the roots of one row of crocuses.
Lydia felt herself begin to relax. Until Harry spoke again, that was.
“Lydia,” he asked, “why did you not have children of your own?”
